The current regulatory and economic environment has increased the importance of motor vehicle fuel efficiency and functionality. One way to reduce the fuel consumption of a vehicle is to reduce vehicle weight. Aluminum alloys typically have a higher strength to weight ratio than steel alloys. Replacing steel with aluminum offers the potential for weight reduction. Aluminum alloy parts may have relatively thin sidewalls having a thickness of 1.0 millimeter or less.
Automotive vehicles include parts that are only accessible from one side. One sided access limits fastener options as traditional nuts and bolts are impractical. Prior solutions include machining a tapped hole in the sidewall of the part or welding a nut onto the part. The thin sidewalls reduce the ability to use tapped holes as a one-sided fastening option. Aluminum alloys are also more difficult and expensive to weld then corresponding steel parts, which makes welding nuts to aluminum parts impractical.
Blind rivets may be used to attach adjacent parts with only one sided access. However, in certain applications it is advantageous to provide a threaded connection on a part having only one sided access. Rivet-nuts are one solution for providing a threaded connection in parts with one-sided access. Traditional rivet-nuts may fail to achieve a sufficiently strong joint on parts having a sidewall thickness of 1.0 millimeter (mm) or less. Aluminum alloy parts may be specified that have sidewall thicknesses of less than 1 mm. There is a need for one-sided fastener receptacles suitable for thin wall parts has increased with the increased use of aluminum alloy parts on vehicles.
The above challenges and other challenges are addressed by this disclosure as summarized below.